Top 40 Oscar Niemeyer Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Life is more important than architecture.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

2. “What attracts me are free and sensual curves. The curves we find in mountains, in the waves of the sea, in the body of the woman we love.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

3. “We have to have dreams, even if they never come true.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

4. “There is no reason to design buildings that are more basic and rectilinear, because with concrete you can cover almost any space.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

5. “Architecture is my work, and Ive spent my whole life at a drawing board, but life is more important than architecture. What matters is to improve human beings.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

6. “My work is not about ‘form follows function,’ but ‘form follows beauty’ or, even better, ‘form follows feminine.’”

— Oscar Niemeyer

7. “For me beauty is valued more than anything – the beauty that is manifest in a curved line or in an act of creativity.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

8. “Surprise is key in all art.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

9. “It is not the right angle that attracts me, nor the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. What attracts me is the free and sensual curve – the curve that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuous course of its rivers, in the body of the beloved woman.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

10. “The artistic capability of reinforced concrete is so fantastic – that is the way to go.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

11. “The architect’s role is to fight for a better world, where he can produce an architecture that serves everyone and not just a group of privileged people.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

12. “When you have a large space to conquer, the curve is the natural solution.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

13. “Camus says in ‘The Stranger’ that reason is the enemy of imagination. Sometimes you have to put reason aside and make something beautiful.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

14. “It was the drawing that led me to architecture, the search for light and astonishing forms.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

15. “Architecture will always express the technical and social progress of the country in which it is carried out. If we wish to give it the human content that it lacks, we must participate in the political struggle.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

16. “Architecture is invention.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

17. “Humanity needs dreams to be able to survive the miseries of daily existence, even if only for an instant.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

18. “Today, architecture is invention. It isn’t enough to just be rational – It must also be beautiful.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

19. “I was attracted by the curve – the liberated, sensual curve suggested by the possibilities of new technology yet so often recalled in venerable old baroque churches.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

20. “My architecture is easy to understand. And enjoy. I hope it also is hard to forget.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

21. “My ambition has always been to reduce a building’s support to a minimum. The more we diminish supporting structures, the more audacious and important the architecture is. That has been my life’s work.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

22. “Architecture does not change anything. It’s always on the side of the wealthy. The important thing is to believe that it can make life better.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

23. “Curves are the essence of my work because they are the essence of Brazil, pure and simple.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

24. “It is not with architecture that one can disseminate any political ideology.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

25. “I pick up my pen. It flows. A building appears. There it is. There is nothing more to say.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

26. “I had some good opportunities. I was lucky to have had the chance to do things differently. Architecture is about surprise.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

27. “Architecture was my way of expressing my ideals: to be simple, to create a world equal to everyone, to look at people with optimism, that everyone has a gift. I don’t want anything but general happiness. Why is that bad?”

— Oscar Niemeyer

28. “The challenge of a cathedral is very good for architectural inventiveness.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

29. “We need to feel that life is important; we need that fantasy so we can live a little better.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

30. “A church is something very beautiful. It is nice when people feel happy in it. But I am not a religious man. Look at us, and then at the infinity of space. We are rather small insignificant creatures, wouldn’t you say?”

— Oscar Niemeyer

31. “I search for surprise in my architecture. A work of art should cause the emotion of newness.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

32. “Turning 102 is crap, and there is nothing to commemorate.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

33. “Here, then, is what I wanted to tell you of my architecture. I created it with courage and idealism, but also with an awareness of the fact that what is important is life, friends, and attempting to make this unjust world a better place in which to live.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

34. “I am a Brazilian before I am an architect. I cannot separate the two.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

35. “Right angles don’t attract me. Nor straight, hard and inflexible lines created by man.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

36. “When students leave college, they are like children who know nothing about the problems of life, and don’t have a political stance.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

37. “When I was very little my mother said I used to draw in the air with my fingers. I needed a pencil. Once I could hold one, I have drawn every day since.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

38. “Sometimes I lose a whole morning waiting on journalists and other people who look for me. But I always find some time for reading, talking to my friends and feeling what is happening in this world.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

39. “I have always accepted and respected all other schools of architecture, from the chill and elemental structures of Mies van der Rohe to the imagination and delirium of Gaudi. I must design what pleases me in a way that is naturally linked to my roots and the country of my origin.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

40. “I think of myself as no more than 60. What I could do at 60, I can still do now.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

41. “The rule is the worst thing. You just want to break it.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

42. “Of course, I have given my engineers some headaches over the years, but they go with me. I have always wanted my buildings to be as light as possible, to touch the ground gently, to swoop and soar, and to surprise.”

— Oscar Niemeyer

43. “I like talking to priests, to Catholics. Everyone has their beliefs.”

— Oscar Niemeyer